Gigabyte dresses up Sandy Bridge in gold, blue

IDF —Motherboard makers have, of course, been prepping for Intel's next-gen Sandy Bridge processors for some time now, and the folks at Gigabyte gave us a sneak peek, here at IDF, at their upcoming motherboards based on Intel 6-series chipsets.

Gigabyte wouldn't reveal everything about these new boards, but we did get a glimpse at their slick new color scheme and, uh, cooling complex. With a black PCB, black DIMM sockets and expansion slots, and a base charcoal color on the cooler, this revamped palette is both tastefully understated and a jarring break from the bright-aqua colors of past Gigabyte boards. The board pictured above is the high-end UD7 model, with golden accents and spiffy gold-colored heatpipes. Check the picture gallery below for more shots of it and of the UD5, which has blue accents instead.

You can see in the pictures above that the UD7 is emblazoned with both SLI and CrossFireX logos, along with a Dolby Home Theater certification logo. One slight surprise on the board is the presence of a pair of old-school PCI slots. Kinda thought a single one of those would suffice. Although we don't have too many other details, we have a sense that Gigabyte may have explored some unexpected options for suppliers of auxiliary chips on these new boards. Perhaps they've learned from our mantra: Fear the crab.